SPI 032: How to Buy a Website with Chris Guthrie

By Pat Flynn on February 9, 2012

In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast we welcome back (for the third time!) Chris Guthrie of MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com.

The first time he was on the show in SPI Session #10—we talked about niche sites and his amazing success promoting products as an affiliate for Amazon.com. In 2010 he sold over a million dollarsof product and collected a generous commission as a result, which is awesome.

The last time he was on the podcast we had a little back and forth discussion in SPI Session #22 about affiliate marketing—tips, tricks and real life experiences from the both of us, which was really fun too.

This time, however, we hardly talk about affiliate marketing at all. In fact, we spend a good 60 minutes chatting about something completely different that Chris has recently been focusing on to grow his net worth—something that I’ve become very interested in as well, especially because it has to do with a major goal I have in 2012.

So what’s this session about?

Buying websites.

Buying a website means that you obviously have to spend a little bit of money, but think about this…

Instead of starting a site from scratch, developing it and getting it to a point where it’s generating an income, which as we all know takes some time and money to do, you can “fast forward” and buy a web property that is already earning money.

If you can improve the earnings of that site (and even if you don’t), that site becomes a very valuable asset that can continue to put money (and for some sites, passive income) in your pocket for a long period of time.

Of course, there’s a lot that goes into buying a website, which is why I wanted to pick Chris’s brain before I dive into this myself.

I will say, however, that if you do become interested in buying websites after listening to the show, even though it is a faster way to get a website that is earning an income online, it’s still going to take some work. Deep research and analysis to minimize risk is what it’s all about.

There are risks involved and nothing is guaranteed—so do you’re homework if this is something you’re going to look into.

“You compare it to buying a house and say just do your research. That’s dangerous advice! When you buy a house you have professionals doing your due diligence and legal stuff for you, you are buying from a local seller and are subject to local laws which have evolved over centuries. Not so with buying website properties from unknown third parties in far away countries who work to no laws at all. You can’t just “do your research”. That research is a specialist skill in itself.” — see more from Clinton below in the comment section.

I hope you enjoyed this unique session here on the SPI Podcast—and look out for some posts from me in the future when I begin to buy websites and document the entire process to hopefully add some nice income generating websites to my off-SPI passive income stream.